


Where is Your Rider?

by PetraMysticaCLXV



Series: The Sun is Setting and the Sky is Red [5]
Category: The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Gore, Book 4: The Tyrant's Tomb (Trials of Apollo), Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Songfic, The Tyrant's Tomb (Trials of Apollo) Spoilers, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25820467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetraMysticaCLXV/pseuds/PetraMysticaCLXV
Summary: ~The shadow of Hades is fading~Diana felt something broke inside of her. The one that is connected with her brother.“NO!” she cried and looked behind where her brother lay writhing on pain.H-It’s rising up. Bow in his hand.A heartbreaking shriek, cut by a sudden sting on the immortal goddess’ hand, and an ornate wooden arrow sticking on her hand. A talking arrow.~Where is your rider?~(Inspired by The Oh Hellos' "Where is Your Rider?")
Relationships: Apollo & Diana (Percy Jackson), Apollo & Meg McCaffrey, Hazel Levesque & Meg McCaffrey, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Thalia Grace & Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano
Series: The Sun is Setting and the Sky is Red [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745107
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	Where is Your Rider?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to another part of the Sun is Setting and the Sky is Red, where we do "what if Apollo died in his close calls". as usual I am warning you that these fics involve Death, Self-harm, and Depression references. If this triggers you, please, please, run away. I've added the "Dead Dove" tag, what you see is what you get.
> 
> I would like to thank my muses and have a good day.
> 
> Enjoy!

_~Was it you ‘mid the fire and ember?~_

In Apollo’s horror, Frank lit himself on fire, making himself the funeral pyre for Caligula.

The former god stared blankly at his ex-lover’s ashes.

Around him their army. He felt deranged for a second.

The army thinks that he is a monster for a second.

“BOO!” he roared, like the crazy emperors, but at the tip of his facade, chips of himself crack away.

Whisperings in his mind are vile words, annoying like the Arrow of Dodona, speaking the truth like the divine arrow, it struck through his head.

“Your fault,” they say.

Pain pulled him back to reality, reminding him that he is fading himself. His gut burns like a thousand suns, like all of the deities stared down on him, when Helios guided him to his first meeting with the other sun gods, introducing him to Amaterasu, Ra, and Apolaki, all of them heads of their own pantheons at their own right.

Hope. Hopeless. “Frank is gone,” the mortal deity thought, “It’s because of me, my prophecies- That’s not how prophecies work,”

Apollo rode back to the chaos.

Meg led him to the bookstore.

_~See your face wasn’t quite as I remember~_

Tarquin is claiming hum. The tyrant asks the dying immortal, confirming Caligula’s and Commodus’ death.

Apollo never knew that death can be so suffocating. Maybe that’s what Commodus felt when he strangled and drowned him back in ancient times. When he held his throat tight and roared him his end just earlier.

The undead king smiled at him, it wasn’t even physically possible nor obvious, but the stare from those hollowed eye sockets and the poison in his veins says otherwise.

****“I can feel your heart pumping its last few beats,”** **

The tyrant king threatened Meg and Hazel.

Tarquin’s grasp is tightening on the fallen god, slowly but surely a new kingdom awaits for him.

_“Everything hurts, it burns,”_ Apollo clenched his jaw. Everything is under chaos, and the man in a sweater is about to lose his grip on his life and reality.

“HOLD ON!” the arrow of Dodona cried, "WAIT!!!”, then his nose smelled the scent of petrichor, and saw a flash of auburn.

“Hey… sis-” he choked on his last breath, and suddenly he felt so cold, so so _cold_.

~ _But these bones never rested while living~_

_~So how can they stand to languish in repose?~_

_[Artemis…_

_She wasn’t the best, but better than all of them._

_The void is welcoming, the embrace of Chaos is comforting._

_There’s a light at the end, but is too blinding, too bright._

_Four thousand years seemed too much…_

_Far too much…_

_I want to rest._

_I’m so sorry. I broke my promises again. At least I can rest._

_Rest.]_

**__ **

**_**Rest my child…** _ **

**__ **

_~The shadow of Hades is fading~_

Diana felt something broke inside of her. The one that is connected with her brother.

“NO!” she cried and looked behind where her brother lay writhing on pain.

H- It’s rising up. Bow in his hand.

A heartbreaking shriek, cut by a sudden sting on the immortal goddess’ hand, and an ornate wooden arrow sticking on her hand. A talking arrow.

“NOOOOO!” the arrow is pounding on her mind, she winced when she pulled it off without snapping it, placing the arrow in her quiver.

Hazel charged at Tarquin, while Meg tried to block another arrow from the newest corpse. The daughter of Demeter tried to use the bind of words, but it never worked.

The youngest of the three hacked away an arrow that is about to pierce her heart, she saw a glimpse of the goddess who has pinned the hordes of the undead by their limbs, all to incapacitate, unlike her brother whose shot is always aimed medically lethal. The fighter is able to close the distance between her and the fallen archer, using the brunt of her handle to try and knock out a corpse, then she realized how strong he could be. When he grabbed her wrist and threw her. Meg’s back hit one of the bookshelves, she saw an arrow pointing at her to demise when Diana dove and kicked away the bow. Meg is stunned.

The twins’ combat can only be described as _intense._ The auburn-haired deity gritted her teeth, her advantage are her weapons she is hesitant to use and godly strength. She knew her brother is far more skilled in wrestling than he let on, and without the mortal restriction, his moves are as reckless as he can be.

But this isn’t his brother anymore, the man in front of her is nothing but a pulseless vessel that once contained a piece of her brother’s essence.

He tripped her, but she was able to pull him down using gravity and her superior strength to pin him with her knives.

Hazel cried at the other side of the store.

Diana joined Pluto’s daughter.

“You foul rotten thing,” a glance to Hazel, and the demigoddess nodded. The daughter of Leto shone silver, vaporizing Tarquin, and the corpses crumpled to the floor.

_~For (s)he has cast down the Leviathan, the tyrant and the horse and rider~_

Diana ran back to the still, mortal vessel. She tried to resuscitate him, but is only met by his deadweight body. So heavy and so light at the same time. The goddess closed the gloss dimmed sapphire orbs. The glow of the poison is gone but so are the signs of life.

Hazel decided to leave first, dragging Meg with her. Then decided to regret it instead, for outside the lieutenant of Diana, the older sister of Jason Grace, Thalia Grace, awaits for them.

It was a long tensed moment of silent, for neither Hazel nor Meg are close to the daughter of Zeus, Meg is especially so for she is with Jason on his last moments alive. Finally, the goddess of the moon arrived, cradling her brother. She also handed a familiar vial to Hazel.

“My lady?” Thalia asked, seeing the dried tears that shone on the goddess’ eyes,

“I will go back to Olympus,” she said briefly, Margaret got a last touch to her companion, a touch of farewell, before the goddess left with his body.

_~Where is your rider?~_

_[Nothing]_

_~Still as boulders laid to the side till we pass by~_

Frank stood beside Hazel, who is clutching the now-empty vial. She threw it down the concrete road, shattering it.

Reyna retired from her post, anointing Hazel as her replacement, and Lavinia as the new centurion. The daughter of Bellona joined the hunters, pledging herself to Diana via Thalia.

They left after that night. As the dead are mourned, given honor and thanks for their service.

“You can join the Amazons if the life of celibacy isn’t for you, Reyna’s older sister is the current queen of the Amazons,” the daughter of Zeus tapped Meg’s shoulder.

“But you can also live as a normal demigod. Since you’re Greek, you’ll be staying in New York, then you can come here and study for college if you like, or just live here peacefully,” Reyna said.

Meg shrugged, “I should go back to New York,”,

Reyna was about to say something comforting, but stopped herself, remembering her father, and their escape from him with Hylla. “Go get ‘em, the camps will support you,” she said instead,

“So are the hunters,” Thalia added.

_~We will abide~_

The god of dead shook his head.

“My niece, the dead should never be revived. But maybe, hopefully, your brother will return,” Hades said, as the body disintegrated, Persephone embraced her loving sister, seeing her glare to the god of the sky as the seventh golden throne rusted, losing its shine.

“- your fault,” she rasped.


End file.
